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Cannibal trail at Jamestown: Your Say

8:28 p.m. EDT May 7, 2013

Doug Owsley of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History displays the skull and facial reconstruction of "Jane of Jamestown" during a news conference in Washington last week.(Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP)

Colonists at Jamestown, Va., resorted to cannibalism in the harsh winter of 1609-10, archaeologists confirmed last week. Comments from Facebook:

A number of incidents of cannibalism have been recorded so one can't just write this off. We all like to think that none of our ancestors were like that, or that we wouldn't do it, but that's not exactly realistic. You don't know what you would do until you're in the situation.

When people enter times of extreme desperation or deprivation, the survival instinct can get pretty brutal. I'm sure this incidence of cannibalism at Jamestown wasn't the first in human history, and it wasn't the last.

— Sabrina M Messenger

Why are people defending them? It is never right to kill someone.

— Ahaqir Ishaq

Well, we don't know if "Jane," whose remains were cited as evidence of cannibalism, was alive or dead when she was eaten. She could have died of starvation first.

— Andy Hapka

It was a different time. None of us knows how we would respond if the chips were down, as they were for these colonists.

And this is not the only reported incident of cannibalism from our history. Look at the Donner Party as an example.

— Chuck Yanus

This is one of the many fascinating aspects of how our country was founded. It didn't just start and stop with the Founding Fathers.